Space Corridor Terrain WIP

This project is a single Spaceship X set from Creative Gamescape. It's a backer reward from their Kickstarter from awhile back. Going into the ups and downs of that particular Kickstarter will have to wait until I do a proper review.

Makin' progress.

I've been making slow and steady progress on this project for awhile now. There was a setback or two, but things have sped up lately due to the current state of affairs. I'm now at a decision point. Which is as good a time as any to look back and see how things have gone so far.

I originally assembled and painted this set for an encounter in our Star Trek Adventures campaign. Unfortunately, I ran in problems with both the assembly and the paint job.

• The pieces started coming apart from routine handling. The bond from the cyanoacrylate glue I used was brittle and weak.
• The metallic spray paint I used was coming off on my hands. A little research on some online forums revealed that this "overspray" issue was common to that brand.
• The wash I used looked patchy. A wash shouldn't be evenly distributed - after all, the point of a wash is for it to flow into the details. However, the bare spots looked less like weathering and more like the wash mixture broke during application. To be fair, the particular bottle of wash I used is years old.

Starting over looked like a better approach than trying to solve each problem piecemeal. I disassembled the pieces and gave all the parts a long soak in Simple Green to strip off as much of the paint and glue as possible. The parts also got a good scrubbing in soap and water.

I started each step with a couple of test pieces. Overall progress slowed down a bit, but this approach allowed me to evaluate the results and make adjustments as needed. No sense in wasting time going down a blind alley.

Reassembly:
I took the opportunity to file down some molding lines and other imperfections that I neglected earlier. Next I used plastic cement to bond the parts together. The plastic cement resulted in a stronger bond than cyanoacrylate, but left noticeable gaps between some of the parts. Some slightly watered down PVA glue worked as a gap filler and to reinforce the bonds holding the parts together.

Primer and Base Coats:
The same research that turned up the overspray issue also suggested a fix. The spray paint I used was supposed to be an all-in-one primer and paint. The fix is to not rely on that and to go ahead and apply a separate primer layer. The theory is that the metallic spray paint would bond better to a primer than directly on the plastic. Unfortunately, that theory didn't pan out. The metallic paint still came off on my hands. Washing the pieces in soap and water improved things only slightly. I decided to press on in the hopes that I could find a solution later.

Comparison: Base coat only (left), base coat + wash (center), and base coat + wash + detailing (right).

Wash:
I mixed a large batch of dark wash for this project using a formula I found online and stored it in a plastic bottle. This would help to keep the color of the wash consistent over all of the pieces. I repeated a method of applying the wash that worked well for a previous project. Rather than brushing on the wash and leaving it, I used a sponge to wipe away some of the excess. This resulted in even coverage on the flat areas while letting the wash settle into the details. The downward motion I used also helped to simulate weathering - nevermind the notion of "weathering" in space.

After highlighting. Note how the center of the room and corridors are a little brighter in color than the rest.

Highlight:

While my goal for the base coat and wash was an even coat in the flat areas, the pieces were looking a little too uniform at this point. I remedied this by applying a small amount of Craft Smart Premium Wax Metallic Finish with a soft cloth. This method provides a subtle gradation between the darker and lighter areas. I considered drybrushing a silver metallic paint to achieve the same effect, but I wanted to experiment a bit.

Detailing in progress. Note the difference between the gold colored rivets and the plain ones.

Detailing:
At this point, I felt that the pieces needed something to make them more interesting to look at. Coloring the round "rivets" with a Metallic Gold Sharpie gave them a little more detail. I choose a Sharpie over paint for convenience. It was easier for me to grab a Sharpie and color a few rivets in between doing other things than to deal with a bottle of paint and a brush in the same circumstances. I also had a Metallic Silver Sharpie on hand for corrections.

Door closeup.

Doors:
I choose to make the doors visually distinct from the rest of the set. During the first time I tackled this project, I spray painted the door pieces the same metallic color as the walls and they tended to blend in. The first test was in a bright orange color that didn't coat well. That test piece will be stripped, reprimed, and repainted later. The purple spray paint I tried next coated well and stands out from the rest of the set. I used the same wash as the rest of the set to bring out the details. The buttons on the keypads were colored using a Metallic Sapphire Sharpie. I applied some thinned down Reaper LED Blue 09288 to rest of the keypad to simulate the appearance of a backlight. I tried something similar in green on the other side, but it didn't work as well. That side on the doors will be repainted to match the blue keypads later. A Metallic Gold Sharpie was used to pick out a few details. The wear marks where the doors meet and near the keypads were applied with a Metallic Silver Sharpie.

Next Steps:
I'm considering options at this point. There are the issues I mentioned above with the door that I need to fix. The corridor pieces looks good enough for tabletop use and are an improvement over my previous attempt. However, the overspray issue is still a concern - I don't want to be washing silver paint off my hands every time I handle the pieces. I'm considering spraying a seal on the corridor pieces to see if that fixes the problem.

Reaper Bones #77113 Eldritch Demon

Been making some progress on my pile of unpainted miniatures and unfinished terrain projects.

This particular project has spent time on and off my work table since I received it with the rest of the original Reaper Bones Kickstarter's backer rewards. The initial plan was to use this miniature to test a paint scheme to eventually use on its much larger cousin. That fell through when I couldn't find a way to produce a satisfactory green. I tried various combinations of base colors, highlights, and washes over the years. Nothing came out quite right until recently.

The key, it turns out, is Baby Poop.

But more on that later.

Look! He's waving hello! What's that he's saying? "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!"

The Name

"Eldritch Demon" isn't the most accurate name for this friendly fellow. "Eldritch" is fair, given its obvious Lovecraftian inspiration. "Demon" isn't really descriptive of an extraterrestrial being, though. Fortunately, there is a wealth of alternatives:

• Star-Spawn of Cthulhu
• Cthulhi
• Xothian
• Li'l Cthulhu
• Cthulhu Junior
• Baby Cthulhu

The Paint Job

The results of my previous attempts formed a dark green-brown base for me to work with. The original primer/base coat is FolkArt 869 Glass & Tile Medium with a little brown paint. That coat is buried under multiple layers of paint, washes, and failure. Couldn't complain about lack of coverage, though.

I hit the raised areas with FolkArt 527 Forest Moss. Some might question the use of a craft paint, but I had a couple of reasons:

• 527 Forest Moss is a light-to-medium green with a hint of yellow. It provides plenty of contrast with the dark green-brown base, even under a layer of wash.
• It's the one thing that worked well from previous attempts at painting this miniature.
• I'm planning on using craft paints as much as possible on the larger miniatures in my collection. This decision is driven entirely by cost - buying enough hobby paint to coat a Reaper Bones Cthulhu or - if I'm ever insane enough to attempt it – Kaladrax Reborn is well outside of my budget. If 527 Forest Moss works well on this project, it will hopefully work as well on a larger version of this project.

Check out those shoulders! Must be all that time working those wings.

Next came Secret Weapon W008 Baby Poop Wash. I purchased this stuff back on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. This is my first experience using a wash from Secret Weapon. The wash flowed smoothly straight out of the bottle, coating the whole miniature without breaking and setting into the recesses on its own. The finished glaze is glossy enough to suggest wet or slimy flesh on close inspection. The green-brown-orange color was just what I was wanting for a tentacled horror not made of ordinary matter.

The claws and bony spurs are a base of P3 Morrow White and a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade.

The tentacles and suckers are a base of Reaper 09183 Cloud Pink and a wash of Secret Weapon Dark Sepia Wash.

The eyes are a base of P3 Morrow White and a wash of Citadel Baal Red that has somehow survived years of storage.

The base was finished in my usual way:

• Paint the integral base brown so none of the Bones white plastic will show through. (The figure was glued on to the round base during assembly.)
• Brush on a layer of watered down PVA glue to the integral and round base.
• Apply sand. Allow glue to dry completely.
• Apply a mix of PVA glue, FolkArt 231 Real Brown, and water to the glued down sand. This further secures the sand to the base surface while coloring it. Allow to dry completely.
• Drybrush FolkArt 420 Linen on the sand layer. This gives the base the appearance of dry earth or wet sand.

I'm pleased at how this project turned out. I'm also happy to be able to put the finished miniature in my display case and move on. It will emerge to menace some player characters soon enough.